3. Herodotus, Histories, 1.5, 1.56, 1.64, 1.105, 2.36-2.64, 3.38, 3.60, 3.122, 4.26, 5.39-5.41, 5.57, 5.65, 5.78, 5.87, 5.92, 6.49, 6.51-6.55, 6.57-6.70, 6.72-6.86, 6.91-6.92, 7.60-7.99, 7.101-7.105, 7.204 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
| 1.5. Such is the Persian account; in their opinion, it was the taking of Troy which began their hatred of the Greeks. ,But the Phoenicians do not tell the same story about Io as the Persians. They say that they did not carry her off to Egypt by force. She had intercourse in Argos with the captain of the ship. Then, finding herself pregt, she was ashamed to have her parents know it, and so, lest they discover her condition, she sailed away with the Phoenicians of her own accord. ,These are the stories of the Persians and the Phoenicians. For my part, I shall not say that this or that story is true, but I shall identify the one who I myself know did the Greeks unjust deeds, and thus proceed with my history, and speak of small and great cities of men alike. ,For many states that were once great have now become small; and those that were great in my time were small before. Knowing therefore that human prosperity never continues in the same place, I shall mention both alike. 1.56. When he heard these verses, Croesus was pleased with them above all, for he thought that a mule would never be king of the Medes instead of a man, and therefore that he and his posterity would never lose his empire. Then he sought very carefully to discover who the mightiest of the Greeks were, whom he should make his friends. ,He found by inquiry that the chief peoples were the Lacedaemonians among those of Doric, and the Athenians among those of Ionic stock. These races, Ionian and Dorian, were the foremost in ancient time, the first a Pelasgian and the second a Hellenic people. The Pelasgian race has never yet left its home; the Hellenic has wandered often and far. ,For in the days of king Deucalion it inhabited the land of Phthia, then the country called Histiaean, under Ossa and Olympus, in the time of Dorus son of Hellen; driven from this Histiaean country by the Cadmeans, it settled about Pindus in the territory called Macedonian; from there again it migrated to Dryopia, and at last came from Dryopia into the Peloponnese, where it took the name of Dorian. 1.64. The Athenians did, and by this means Pisistratus gained Athens for the third time, rooting his sovereignty in a strong guard and revenue collected both from Athens and from the district of the river Strymon, and he took hostage the sons of the Athenians who remained and did not leave the city at once, and placed these in Naxos . ,(He had conquered Naxos too and put Lygdamis in charge.) And besides this, he purified the island of Delos as a result of oracles, and this is how he did it: he removed all the dead that were buried in ground within sight of the temple and conveyed them to another part of Delos . ,So Pisistratus was sovereign of Athens : and as for the Athenians, some had fallen in the battle, and some, with the Alcmeonids, were exiles from their native land. 1.105. From there they marched against Egypt : and when they were in the part of Syria called Palestine, Psammetichus king of Egypt met them and persuaded them with gifts and prayers to come no further. ,So they turned back, and when they came on their way to the city of Ascalon in Syria, most of the Scythians passed by and did no harm, but a few remained behind and plundered the temple of Heavenly Aphrodite. ,This temple, I discover from making inquiry, is the oldest of all the temples of the goddess, for the temple in Cyprus was founded from it, as the Cyprians themselves say; and the temple on Cythera was founded by Phoenicians from this same land of Syria . ,But the Scythians who pillaged the temple, and all their descendants after them, were afflicted by the goddess with the “female” sickness: and so the Scythians say that they are afflicted as a consequence of this and also that those who visit Scythian territory see among them the condition of those whom the Scythians call “Hermaphrodites”. 2.36. Everywhere else, priests of the gods wear their hair long; in Egypt, they are shaven. For all other men, the rule in mourning for the dead is that those most nearly concerned have their heads shaven; Egyptians are shaven at other times, but after a death they let their hair and beard grow. ,The Egyptians are the only people who keep their animals with them in the house. Whereas all others live on wheat and barley, it is the greatest disgrace for an Egyptian to live so; they make food from a coarse grain which some call spelt. ,They knead dough with their feet, and gather mud and dung with their hands. The Egyptians and those who have learned it from them are the only people who practise circumcision. Every man has two garments, every woman only one. ,The rings and sheets of sails are made fast outside the boat elsewhere, but inside it in Egypt . The Greeks write and calculate from left to right; the Egyptians do the opposite; yet they say that their way of writing is towards the right, and the Greek way towards the left. They employ two kinds of writing; one is called sacred, the other demotic. 2.37. They are religious beyond measure, more than any other people; and the following are among their customs. They drink from cups of bronze, which they clean out daily; this is done not by some but by all. ,They are especially careful always to wear newly-washed linen. They practise circumcision for cleanliness' sake; for they would rather be clean than more becoming. Their priests shave the whole body every other day, so that no lice or anything else foul may infest them as they attend upon the gods. ,The priests wear a single linen garment and sandals of papyrus: they may have no other kind of clothing or footwear. Twice a day and twice every night they wash in cold water. Their religious observances are, one may say, innumerable. ,But also they receive many benefits: they do not consume or spend anything of their own; sacred food is cooked for them, beef and goose are brought in great abundance to each man every day, and wine of grapes is given to them, too. They may not eat fish. ,The Egyptians sow no beans in their country; if any grow, they will not eat them either raw or cooked; the priests cannot endure even to see them, considering beans an unclean kind of legume. Many (not only one) are dedicated to the service of each god. One of these is the high priest; and when a high priest dies, his son succeeds to his office. 2.38. They believe that bulls belong to Epaphus, and for this reason scrutinize them as follows; if they see even one black hair on them, the bull is considered impure. ,One of the priests, appointed to the task, examines the beast, making it stand and lie, and drawing out its tongue, to determine whether it is clean of the stated signs which I shall indicate hereafter. He looks also to the hairs of the tail, to see if they grow naturally. ,If it is clean in all these respects, the priest marks it by wrapping papyrus around the horns, then smears it with sealing-earth and stamps it with his ring; and after this they lead the bull away. But the penalty is death for sacrificing a bull that the priest has not marked. Such is the manner of approving the beast; I will now describe how it is sacrificed. 2.39. After leading the marked beast to the altar where they will sacrifice it, they kindle a fire; then they pour wine on the altar over the victim and call upon the god; then they cut its throat, and having done so sever the head from the body. ,They flay the carcass of the victim, then invoke many curses on its head, which they carry away. Where there is a market, and Greek traders in it, the head is taken to the market and sold; where there are no Greeks, it is thrown into the river. ,The imprecation which they utter over the heads is that whatever ill threatens those who sacrifice, or the whole of Egypt, fall upon that head. ,In respect of the heads of sacrificed beasts and the libation of wine, the practice of all Egyptians is the same in all sacrifices; and from this ordice no Egyptian will taste of the head of anything that had life. 2.40. But in regard to the disembowelling and burning of the victims, there is a different way for each sacrifice. I shall now, however, speak of that goddess whom they consider the greatest, and in whose honor they keep highest festival. ,After praying in the foregoing way, they take the whole stomach out of the flayed bull, leaving the entrails and the fat in the carcass, and cut off the legs, the end of the loin, the shoulders, and the neck. ,Having done this, they fill what remains of the carcass with pure bread, honey, raisins, figs, frankincense, myrrh, and other kinds of incense, and then burn it, pouring a lot of oil on it. ,They fast before the sacrifice, and while it is burning, they all make lamentation; and when their lamentation is over, they set out a meal of what is left of the victim. 2.41. All Egyptians sacrifice unblemished bulls and bull-calves; they may not sacrifice cows: these are sacred to Isis. ,For the images of Isis are in woman's form, horned like a cow, exactly as the Greeks picture Io, and cows are held by far the most sacred of all beasts of the herd by all Egyptians alike. ,For this reason, no Egyptian man or woman will kiss a Greek man, or use a knife, or a spit, or a cauldron belonging to a Greek, or taste the flesh of an unblemished bull that has been cut up with a Greek knife. ,Cattle that die are dealt with in the following way. Cows are cast into the river, bulls are buried by each city in its suburbs, with one or both horns uncovered for a sign; then, when the carcass is decomposed, and the time appointed is at hand, a boat comes to each city from the island called Prosopitis, ,an island in the Delta, nine schoeni in circumference. There are many other towns on Prosopitis; the one from which the boats come to gather the bones of the bulls is called Atarbekhis; a temple of Aphrodite stands in it of great sanctity. ,From this town many go out, some to one town and some to another, to dig up the bones, which they then carry away and all bury in one place. As they bury the cattle, so do they all other beasts at death. Such is their ordice respecting these also; for they, too, may not be killed. 2.42. All that have a temple of Zeus of Thebes or are of the Theban district sacrifice goats, but will not touch sheep. ,For no gods are worshipped by all Egyptians in common except Isis and Osiris, who they say is Dionysus; these are worshipped by all alike. Those who have a temple of Mendes or are of the Mendesian district sacrifice sheep, but will not touch goats. ,The Thebans, and those who by the Theban example will not touch sheep, give the following reason for their ordice: they say that Heracles wanted very much to see Zeus and that Zeus did not want to be seen by him, but that finally, when Heracles prayed, Zeus contrived ,to show himself displaying the head and wearing the fleece of a ram which he had flayed and beheaded. It is from this that the Egyptian images of Zeus have a ram's head; and in this, the Egyptians are imitated by the Ammonians, who are colonists from Egypt and Ethiopia and speak a language compounded of the tongues of both countries. ,It was from this, I think, that the Ammonians got their name, too; for the Egyptians call Zeus “Amon”. The Thebans, then, consider rams sacred for this reason, and do not sacrifice them. ,But one day a year, at the festival of Zeus, they cut in pieces and flay a single ram and put the fleece on the image of Zeus, as in the story; then they bring an image of Heracles near it. Having done this, all that are at the temple mourn for the ram, and then bury it in a sacred coffin. 2.43. Concerning Heracles, I heard it said that he was one of the twelve gods. But nowhere in Egypt could I hear anything about the other Heracles, whom the Greeks know. ,I have indeed a lot of other evidence that the name of Heracles did not come from Hellas to Egypt, but from Egypt to Hellas (and in Hellas to those Greeks who gave the name Heracles to the son of Amphitryon), besides this: that Amphitryon and Alcmene, the parents of this Heracles, were both Egyptian by descent ; and that the Egyptians deny knowing the names Poseidon and the Dioscuri, nor are these gods reckoned among the gods of Egypt . ,Yet if they got the name of any deity from the Greeks, of these not least but in particular would they preserve a recollection, if indeed they were already making sea voyages and some Greeks, too, were seafaring men, as I expect and judge; so that the names of these gods would have been even better known to the Egyptians than the name of Heracles. ,But Heracles is a very ancient god in Egypt ; as the Egyptians themselves say, the change of the eight gods to the twelve, one of whom they acknowledge Heracles to be, was made seventeen thousand years before the reign of Amasis. 2.44. Moreover, wishing to get clear information about this matter where it was possible so to do, I took ship for Tyre in Phoenicia, where I had learned by inquiry that there was a holy temple of Heracles. ,There I saw it, richly equipped with many other offerings, besides two pillars, one of refined gold, one of emerald: a great pillar that shone at night; and in conversation with the priests, I asked how long it was since their temple was built. ,I found that their account did not tally with the belief of the Greeks, either; for they said that the temple of the god was founded when Tyre first became a city, and that was two thousand three hundred years ago. At Tyre I saw yet another temple of the so-called Thasian Heracles. ,Then I went to Thasos, too, where I found a temple of Heracles built by the Phoenicians, who made a settlement there when they voyaged in search of Europe ; now they did so as much as five generations before the birth of Heracles the son of Amphitryon in Hellas . ,Therefore, what I have discovered by inquiry plainly shows that Heracles is an ancient god. And furthermore, those Greeks, I think, are most in the right, who have established and practise two worships of Heracles, sacrificing to one Heracles as to an immortal, and calling him the Olympian, but to the other bringing offerings as to a dead hero. 2.45. And the Greeks say many other ill-considered things, too; among them, this is a silly story which they tell about Heracles: that when he came to Egypt, the Egyptians crowned him and led him out in a procession to sacrifice him to Zeus; and for a while (they say) he followed quietly, but when they started in on him at the altar, he resisted and killed them all. ,Now it seems to me that by this story the Greeks show themselves altogether ignorant of the character and customs of the Egyptians; for how should they sacrifice men when they are forbidden to sacrifice even beasts, except swine and bulls and bull-calves, if they are unblemished, and geese? ,And furthermore, as Heracles was alone, and, still, only a man, as they say, how is it natural that he should kill many myriads? In talking so much about this, may I keep the goodwill of gods and heroes! 2.46. This is why the Egyptians of whom I have spoken sacrifice no goats, male or female: the Mendesians reckon Pan among the eight gods who, they say, were before the twelve gods. ,Now in their painting and sculpture, the image of Pan is made with the head and the legs of a goat, as among the Greeks; not that he is thought to be in fact such, or unlike other gods; but why they represent him so, I have no wish to say. ,The Mendesians consider all goats sacred, the male even more than the female, and goatherds are held in special estimation: one he-goat is most sacred of all; when he dies, it is ordained that there should be great mourning in all the Mendesian district. ,In the Egyptian language Mendes is the name both for the he-goat and for Pan. In my lifetime a strange thing occurred in this district: a he-goat had intercourse openly with a woman. This came to be publicly known. 2.47. Swine are held by the Egyptians to be unclean beasts. In the first place, if an Egyptian touches a hog in passing, he goes to the river and dips himself in it, clothed as he is; and in the second place, swineherds, though native born Egyptians, are alone of all men forbidden to enter any Egyptian temple; nor will any give a swineherd his daughter in marriage, nor take a wife from their women; but swineherds intermarry among themselves. ,Nor do the Egyptians think it right to sacrifice swine to any god except the Moon and Dionysus; to these, they sacrifice their swine at the same time, in the same season of full moon; then they eat the meat. The Egyptians have an explanation of why they sacrifice swine at this festival, yet abominate them at others; I know it, but it is not fitting that I relate it. ,But this is how they sacrifice swine to the Moon: the sacrificer lays the end of the tail and the spleen and the caul together and covers them up with all the fat that he finds around the belly, then consigns it all to the fire; as for the rest of the flesh, they eat it at the time of full moon when they sacrifice the victim; but they will not taste it on any other day. Poor men, with but slender means, mold swine out of dough, which they then take and sacrifice. 2.48. To Dionysus, on the evening of his festival, everyone offers a piglet which he kills before his door and then gives to the swineherd who has sold it, for him to take away. ,The rest of the festival of Dionysus is observed by the Egyptians much as it is by the Greeks, except for the dances; but in place of the phallus, they have invented the use of puppets two feet high moved by strings, the male member nodding and nearly as big as the rest of the body, which are carried about the villages by women; a flute-player goes ahead, the women follow behind singing of Dionysus. ,Why the male member is so large and is the only part of the body that moves, there is a sacred legend that explains. 2.49. Now then, it seems to me that Melampus son of Amytheon was not ignorant of but was familiar with this sacrifice. For Melampus was the one who taught the Greeks the name of Dionysus and the way of sacrificing to him and the phallic procession; he did not exactly unveil the subject taking all its details into consideration, for the teachers who came after him made a fuller revelation; but it was from him that the Greeks learned to bear the phallus along in honor of Dionysus, and they got their present practice from his teaching. ,I say, then, that Melampus acquired the prophetic art, being a discerning man, and that, besides many other things which he learned from Egypt, he also taught the Greeks things concerning Dionysus, altering few of them; for I will not say that what is done in Egypt in connection with the god and what is done among the Greeks originated independently: for they would then be of an Hellenic character and not recently introduced. ,Nor again will I say that the Egyptians took either this or any other custom from the Greeks. But I believe that Melampus learned the worship of Dionysus chiefly from Cadmus of Tyre and those who came with Cadmus from Phoenicia to the land now called Boeotia . 2.50. In fact, the names of nearly all the gods came to Hellas from Egypt . For I am convinced by inquiry that they have come from foreign parts, and I believe that they came chiefly from Egypt . ,Except the names of Poseidon and the Dioscuri, as I have already said, and Hera, and Hestia, and Themis, and the Graces, and the Nereids, the names of all the gods have always existed in Egypt . I only say what the Egyptians themselves say. The gods whose names they say they do not know were, as I think, named by the Pelasgians, except Poseidon, the knowledge of whom they learned from the Libyans. ,Alone of all nations the Libyans have had among them the name of Poseidon from the beginning, and they have always honored this god. The Egyptians, however, are not accustomed to pay any honors to heroes. 2.51. These customs, then, and others besides, which I shall indicate, were taken by the Greeks from the Egyptians. It was not so with the ithyphallic images of Hermes; the production of these came from the Pelasgians, from whom the Athenians were the first Greeks to take it, and then handed it on to others. ,For the Athenians were then already counted as Greeks when the Pelasgians came to live in the land with them and thereby began to be considered as Greeks. Whoever has been initiated into the rites of the Cabeiri, which the Samothracians learned from the Pelasgians and now practice, understands what my meaning is. ,Samothrace was formerly inhabited by those Pelasgians who came to live among the Athenians, and it is from them that the Samothracians take their rites. ,The Athenians, then, were the first Greeks to make ithyphallic images of Hermes, and they did this because the Pelasgians taught them. The Pelasgians told a certain sacred tale about this, which is set forth in the Samothracian mysteries. 2.52. Formerly, in all their sacrifices, the Pelasgians called upon gods without giving name or appellation to any (I know this, because I was told at Dodona ); for as yet they had not heard of such. They called them gods from the fact that, besides setting everything in order, they maintained all the dispositions. ,Then, after a long while, first they learned the names of the rest of the gods, which came to them from Egypt, and, much later, the name of Dionysus; and presently they asked the oracle at Dodona about the names; for this place of divination, held to be the most ancient in Hellas, was at that time the only one. ,When the Pelasgians, then, asked at Dodona whether they should adopt the names that had come from foreign parts, the oracle told them to use the names. From that time onwards they used the names of the gods in their sacrifices; and the Greeks received these later from the Pelasgians. 2.53. But whence each of the gods came to be, or whether all had always been, and how they appeared in form, they did not know until yesterday or the day before, so to speak; ,for I suppose Hesiod and Homer flourished not more than four hundred years earlier than I; and these are the ones who taught the Greeks the descent of the gods, and gave the gods their names, and determined their spheres and functions, and described their outward forms. ,But the poets who are said to have been earlier than these men were, in my opinion, later. The earlier part of all this is what the priestesses of Dodona tell; the later, that which concerns Hesiod and Homer, is what I myself say. 2.54. But about the oracles in Hellas, and that one which is in Libya, the Egyptians give the following account. The priests of Zeus of Thebes told me that two priestesses had been carried away from Thebes by Phoenicians; one, they said they had heard was taken away and sold in Libya, the other in Hellas ; these women, they said, were the first founders of places of divination in the aforesaid countries. ,When I asked them how it was that they could speak with such certain knowledge, they said in reply that their people had sought diligently for these women, and had never been able to find them, but had learned later the story which they were telling me. 2.55. That, then, I heard from the Theban priests; and what follows, the prophetesses of Dodona say: that two black doves had come flying from Thebes in Egypt, one to Libya and one to Dodona ; ,the latter settled on an oak tree, and there uttered human speech, declaring that a place of divination from Zeus must be made there; the people of Dodona understood that the message was divine, and therefore established the oracular shrine. ,The dove which came to Libya told the Libyans (they say) to make an oracle of Ammon; this also is sacred to Zeus. Such was the story told by the Dodonaean priestesses, the eldest of whom was Promeneia and the next Timarete and the youngest Nicandra; and the rest of the servants of the temple at Dodona similarly held it true. 2.56. But my own belief about it is this. If the Phoenicians did in fact carry away the sacred women and sell one in Libya and one in Hellas, then, in my opinion, the place where this woman was sold in what is now Hellas, but was formerly called Pelasgia, was Thesprotia ; ,and then, being a slave there, she established a shrine of Zeus under an oak that was growing there; for it was reasonable that, as she had been a handmaid of the temple of Zeus at Thebes , she would remember that temple in the land to which she had come. ,After this, as soon as she understood the Greek language, she taught divination; and she said that her sister had been sold in Libya by the same Phoenicians who sold her. 2.57. I expect that these women were called “doves” by the people of Dodona because they spoke a strange language, and the people thought it like the cries of birds; ,then the woman spoke what they could understand, and that is why they say that the dove uttered human speech; as long as she spoke in a foreign tongue, they thought her voice was like the voice of a bird. For how could a dove utter the speech of men? The tale that the dove was black signifies that the woman was Egyptian . ,The fashions of divination at Thebes of Egypt and at Dodona are like one another; moreover, the practice of divining from the sacrificed victim has also come from Egypt . 2.58. It would seem, too, that the Egyptians were the first people to establish solemn assemblies, and processions, and services; the Greeks learned all that from them. I consider this proved, because the Egyptian ceremonies are manifestly very ancient, and the Greek are of recent origin. 2.59. The Egyptians hold solemn assemblies not once a year, but often. The principal one of these and the most enthusiastically celebrated is that in honor of Artemis at the town of Bubastis , and the next is that in honor of Isis at Busiris. ,This town is in the middle of the Egyptian Delta, and there is in it a very great temple of Isis, who is Demeter in the Greek language. ,The third greatest festival is at Saïs in honor of Athena; the fourth is the festival of the sun at Heliopolis, the fifth of Leto at Buto, and the sixth of Ares at Papremis. 2.60. When the people are on their way to Bubastis, they go by river, a great number in every boat, men and women together. Some of the women make a noise with rattles, others play flutes all the way, while the rest of the women, and the men, sing and clap their hands. ,As they travel by river to Bubastis, whenever they come near any other town they bring their boat near the bank; then some of the women do as I have said, while some shout mockery of the women of the town; others dance, and others stand up and lift their skirts. They do this whenever they come alongside any riverside town. ,But when they have reached Bubastis, they make a festival with great sacrifices, and more wine is drunk at this feast than in the whole year besides. It is customary for men and women (but not children) to assemble there to the number of seven hundred thousand, as the people of the place say. 2.61. This is what they do there; I have already described how they keep the feast of Isis at Busiris. There, after the sacrifice, all the men and women lament, in countless numbers; but it is not pious for me to say who it is for whom they lament. ,Carians who live in Egypt do even more than this, inasmuch as they cut their foreheads with knives; and by this they show that they are foreigners and not Egyptians. 2.62. When they assemble at Saïs on the night of the sacrifice, they keep lamps burning outside around their houses. These lamps are saucers full of salt and oil on which the wick floats, and they burn all night. This is called the Feast of Lamps. ,Egyptians who do not come to this are mindful on the night of sacrifice to keep their own lamps burning, and so they are alight not only at Saïs but throughout Egypt . A sacred tale is told showing why this night is lit up thus and honored. 2.63. When the people go to Heliopolis and Buto, they offer sacrifice only. At Papremis sacrifice is offered and rites performed just as elsewhere; but when the sun is setting, a few of the priests hover about the image, while most of them go and stand in the entrance to the temple with clubs of wood in their hands; others, more than a thousand men fulfilling vows, who also carry wooden clubs, stand in a mass opposite. ,The image of the god, in a little gilded wooden shrine, they carry away on the day before this to another sacred building. The few who are left with the image draw a four-wheeled wagon conveying the shrine and the image that is in the shrine; the others stand in the space before the doors and do not let them enter, while the vow-keepers, taking the side of the god, strike them, who defend themselves. ,A fierce fight with clubs breaks out there, and they are hit on their heads, and many, I expect, even die from their wounds; although the Egyptians said that nobody dies. ,The natives say that they made this assembly a custom from the following incident: the mother of Ares lived in this temple; Ares had been raised apart from her and came, when he grew up, wishing to visit his mother; but as her attendants kept him out and would not let him pass, never having seen him before, Ares brought men from another town, manhandled the attendants, and went in to his mother. From this, they say, this hitting for Ares became a custom in the festival. 2.64. Furthermore, it was the Egyptians who first made it a matter of religious observance not to have intercourse with women in temples or to enter a temple after such intercourse without washing. Nearly all other peoples are less careful in this matter than are the Egyptians and Greeks, and consider a man to be like any other animal; ,for beasts and birds (they say) are seen to mate both in the temples and in the sacred precincts; now were this displeasing to the god, the beasts would not do so. This is the reason given by others for practices which I, for my part, dislike; 3.38. I hold it then in every way proved that Cambyses was quite insane; or he would never have set himself to deride religion and custom. For if it were proposed to all nations to choose which seemed best of all customs, each, after examination, would place its own first; so well is each convinced that its own are by far the best. ,It is not therefore to be supposed that anyone, except a madman, would turn such things to ridicule. I will give this one proof among many from which it may be inferred that all men hold this belief about their customs. ,When Darius was king, he summoned the Greeks who were with him and asked them for what price they would eat their fathers' dead bodies. They answered that there was no price for which they would do it. ,Then Darius summoned those Indians who are called Callatiae, who eat their parents, and asked them (the Greeks being present and understanding through interpreters what was said) what would make them willing to burn their fathers at death. The Indians cried aloud, that he should not speak of so horrid an act. So firmly rooted are these beliefs; and it is, I think, rightly said in Pindar's poem that custom is lord of all. 3.60. I have written at such length of the Samians, because the three greatest works of all the Greeks were engineered by them. The first of these is the tunnel with a mouth at either end driven through the base of a hill nine hundred feet high; ,the whole tunnel is forty-two hundred feet long, eight feet high and eight feet wide; and throughout the whole of its length there runs a channel thirty feet deep and three feet wide, through which the water coming from an abundant spring is carried by pipes to the city of Samos . ,The designer of this work was Eupalinus son of Naustrophus, a Megarian. This is one of the three works; the second is a breakwater in the sea enclosing the harbor, sunk one hundred and twenty feet, and more than twelve hundred feet in length. ,The third Samian work is the temple, which is the greatest of all the temples of which we know; its first builder was Rhoecus son of Philes, a Samian. It is for this cause that I have expounded at more than ordinary length of Samos . 3.122. These are the two reasons alleged for Polycrates' death; believe whichever you like. But the consequence was that Oroetes, then at Magnesia which is above the river Maeander, sent Myrsus son of Gyges, a Lydian, with a message to Samos, having learned Polycrates' intention; ,for Polycrates was the first of the Greeks whom we know to aim at the mastery of the sea, leaving out of account Minos of Cnossus and any others who before him may have ruled the sea; of what may be called the human race Polycrates was the first, and he had great hope of ruling Ionia and the Islands. ,Learning then that he had this intention, Oroetes sent him this message: “Oroetes addresses Polycrates as follows: I find that you aim at great things, but that you have not sufficient money for your purpose. Do then as I direct, and you will succeed yourself and will save me. King Cambyses aims at my death; of this I have clear intelligence. ,Now if you will transport me and my money, you may take some yourself and let me keep the rest; thus you shall have wealth enough to rule all Hellas . If you mistrust what I tell you about the money, send someone who is most trusted by you and I will prove it to him.” 4.26. It is said to be the custom of the Issedones that, whenever a man's father dies, all the nearest of kin bring beasts of the flock and, having killed these and cut up the flesh, they also cut up the dead father of their host, and set out all the flesh mixed together for a feast. ,As for his head, they strip it bare and clean and gild it, and keep it for a sacred relic, to which they offer solemn sacrifice yearly. Every son does this for his father, just like the Greeks in their festivals in honor of the dead. In other respects, these are said to be a law-abiding people, too, and the women to have equal power with the men. 5.41. After no long time the second wife gave birth to Cleomenes. She, then, gave the Spartans an heir to the royal power, and as luck would have it, the first wife, who had been barren before, conceived at that very time. ,When the friends of the new wife learned that the other woman was pregt, they began to make trouble for her. They said that she was making an empty boast, so that she might substitute a child. The Ephors were angry, and when her time drew near, they sat around to watch her in childbirth because of their skepticism. ,She gave birth first to Dorieus, then straightway to Leonidas, and right after him to Cleombrotus. Some, however, say that Cleombrotus and Leonidas were twins. As for the later wife, the mother of Cleomenes and the daughter of Prinetadas son of Demarmenus, she bore no more children. 5.57. Now the Gephyraean clan, of which the slayers of Hipparchus were members, claim to have come at first from Eretria, but my own enquiry shows that they were among the Phoenicians who came with Cadmus to the country now called Boeotia. In that country the lands of Tanagra were allotted to them, and this is where they settled. ,The Cadmeans had first been expelled from there by the Argives, and these Gephyraeans were forced to go to Athens after being expelled in turn by the Boeotians. The Athenians received them as citizens of their own on set terms, debarring them from many practices not deserving of mention here. 5.65. The Lacedaemonians would never have taken the Pisistratid stronghold. First of all they had no intention to blockade it, and secondly the Pisistratidae were well furnished with food and drink. The Lacedaemonians would only have besieged the place for a few days and then returned to Sparta. As it was, however, there was a turn of fortune which harmed the one party and helped the other, for the sons of the Pisistratid family were taken as they were being secretly carried out of the country. ,When this happened, all their plans were confounded, and they agreed to depart from Attica within five days on the terms prescribed to them by the Athenians in return for the recovery of their children. ,Afterwards they departed to Sigeum on the Scamander. They had ruled the Athenians for thirty-six years and were in lineage of the house of Pylos and Neleus, born of the same ancestors as the families of Codrus and Melanthus, who had formerly come from foreign parts to be kings of Athens. ,It was for this reason that Hippocrates gave his son the name Pisistratus as a remembrance, calling him after Pisistratus the son of Nestor. ,This is the way, then, that the Athenians got rid of their tyrants. As regards all the noteworthy things which they did or endured after they were freed and before Ionia revolted from Darius and Aristagoras of Miletus came to Athens to ask help of its people, of these I will first give an account. 5.78. So the Athenians grew in power and proved, not in one respect only but in all, that equality is a good thing. Evidence for this is the fact that while they were under tyrannical rulers, the Athenians were no better in war than any of their neighbors, yet once they got rid of their tyrants, they were by far the best of all. This, then, shows that while they were oppressed, they were, as men working for a master, cowardly, but when they were freed, each one was eager to achieve for himself. 5.87. This, then, is the story told by the Argives and Aeginetans, and the Athenians too acknowledge that only one man of their number returned safely to Attica. ,The Argives, however, say that he escaped after they had destroyed the rest of the Athenian force, while the Athenians claim that the whole thing was to be attributed to divine power. This one man did not survive but perished in the following manner. It would seem that he made his way to Athens and told of the mishap. When the wives of the men who had gone to attack Aegina heard this, they were very angry that he alone should be safe. They gathered round him and stabbed him with the brooch-pins of their garments, each asking him where her husband was. ,This is how this man met his end, and the Athenians found the action of their women to be more dreadful than their own misfortune. They could find, it is said, no other way to punish the women than changing their dress to the Ionian fashion. Until then the Athenian women had worn Dorian dress, which is very like the Corinthian. It was changed, therefore, to the linen tunic, so that they might have no brooch-pins to use. 5.92. These were the words of the Lacedaemonians, but their words were ill-received by the greater part of their allies. The rest then keeping silence, Socles, a Corinthian, said, ,“In truth heaven will be beneath the earth and the earth aloft above the heaven, and men will dwell in the sea and fishes where men dwelt before, now that you, Lacedaemonians, are destroying the rule of equals and making ready to bring back tyranny into the cities, tyranny, a thing more unrighteous and bloodthirsty than anything else on this earth. ,If indeed it seems to you to be a good thing that the cities be ruled by tyrants, set up a tyrant among yourselves first and then seek to set up such for the rest. As it is, however, you, who have never made trial of tyrants and take the greatest precautions that none will arise at Sparta, deal wrongfully with your allies. If you had such experience of that thing as we have, you would be more prudent advisers concerning it than you are now.” ,The Corinthian state was ordered in such manner as I will show.There was an oligarchy, and this group of men, called the Bacchiadae, held sway in the city, marrying and giving in marriage among themselves. Now Amphion, one of these men, had a crippled daughter, whose name was Labda. Since none of the Bacchiadae would marry her, she was wedded to Eetion son of Echecrates, of the township of Petra, a Lapith by lineage and of the posterity of Caeneus. ,When no sons were born to him by this wife or any other, he set out to Delphi to enquire concerning the matter of acquiring offspring. As soon as he entered, the Pythian priestess spoke these verses to him: quote type="oracle" l met="dact" Eetion,worthy of honor, no man honors you. /l l Labda is with child, and her child will be a millstone /l lWhich will fall upon the rulers and will bring justice to Corinth. /l /quote ,This oracle which was given to Eetion was in some way made known to the Bacchiadae. The earlier oracle sent to Corinth had not been understood by them, despite the fact that its meaning was the same as the meaning of the oracle of Eetion, and it read as follows: quote type="oracle" l met="dact"An eagle in the rocks has conceived, and will bring forth a lion, /l lStrong and fierce. The knees of many will it loose. /l lThis consider well, Corinthians, /l lYou who dwell by lovely Pirene and the overhanging heights of Corinth. /l /quote ,This earlier prophecy had been unintelligible to the Bacchiadae, but as soon as they heard the one which was given to Eetion, they understood it at once, recognizing its similarity with the oracle of Eetion. Now understanding both oracles, they kept quiet but resolved to do away with the offspring of Eetion. Then, as soon as his wife had given birth, they sent ten men of their clan to the township where Eetion dwelt to kill the child. ,These men came to Petra and passing into Eetion's courtyard, asked for the child. Labda, knowing nothing of the purpose of their coming and thinking that they wished to see the baby out of affection for its father, brought it and placed it into the hands of one of them. Now they had planned on their way that the first of them who received the child should dash it to the ground. ,When, however, Labda brought and handed over the child, by divine chance it smiled at the man who took it. This he saw, and compassion prevented him from killing it. Filled with pity, he handed it to a second, and this man again to a third.In fact it passed from hand to hand to each of the ten, for none would make an end of it. ,They then gave the child back to its mother, and after going out, they stood before the door reproaching and upbraiding one another, but chiefly him who had first received it since he had not acted in accordance with their agreement. Finally they resolved to go in again and all have a hand in the killing. ,Fate, however, had decreed that Eetion's offspring should be the source of ills for Corinth, for Labda, standing close to this door, heard all this. Fearing that they would change their minds and that they would take and actually kill the child, she took it away and hid it where she thought it would be hardest to find, in a chest, for she knew that if they returned and set about searching they would seek in every place—which in fact they did. ,They came and searched, but when they did not find it, they resolved to go off and say to those who had sent them that they had carried out their orders. They then went away and said this. ,Eetion's son, however, grew up, and because of his escape from that danger, he was called Cypselus, after the chest. When he had reached manhood and was seeking a divination, an oracle of double meaning was given him at Delphi. Putting faith in this, he made an attempt on Corinth and won it. ,The oracle was as follows: quote type="oracle" l met="dact"That man is fortunate who steps into my house, /l l Cypselus, son of Eetion, the king of noble Corinth, /l lHe himself and his children, but not the sons of his sons. /l /quote Such was the oracle. Cypselus, however, when he had gained the tyranny, conducted himself in this way: many of the Corinthians he drove into exile, many he deprived of their wealth, and by far the most he had killed. ,After a reign of thirty years, he died in the height of prosperity, and was succeeded by his son Periander. Now Periander was to begin with milder than his father, but after he had held converse by messenger with Thrasybulus the tyrant of Miletus, he became much more bloodthirsty than Cypselus. ,He had sent a herald to Thrasybulus and inquired in what way he would best and most safely govern his city. Thrasybulus led the man who had come from Periander outside the town, and entered into a sown field. As he walked through the corn, continually asking why the messenger had come to him from Corinth, he kept cutting off all the tallest ears of wheat which he could see, and throwing them away, until he had destroyed the best and richest part of the crop. ,Then, after passing through the place and speaking no word of counsel, he sent the herald away. When the herald returned to Corinth, Periander desired to hear what counsel he brought, but the man said that Thrasybulus had given him none. The herald added that it was a strange man to whom he had been sent, a madman and a destroyer of his own possessions, telling Periander what he had seen Thrasybulus do. ,Periander, however, understood what had been done, and perceived that Thrasybulus had counselled him to slay those of his townsmen who were outstanding in influence or ability; with that he began to deal with his citizens in an evil manner. Whatever act of slaughter or banishment Cypselus had left undone, that Periander brought to accomplishment. In a single day he stripped all the women of Corinth naked, because of his own wife Melissa. ,Periander had sent messengers to the Oracle of the Dead on the river Acheron in Thesprotia to enquire concerning a deposit that a friend had left, but Melissa, in an apparition, said that she would tell him nothing, nor reveal where the deposit lay, for she was cold and naked. The garments, she said, with which Periander had buried with her had never been burnt, and were of no use to her. Then, as evidence for her husband that she spoke the truth, she added that Periander had put his loaves into a cold oven. ,When this message was brought back to Periander (for he had had intercourse with the dead body of Melissa and knew her token for true), immediately after the message he made a proclamation that all the Corinthian women should come out into the temple of Hera. They then came out as to a festival, wearing their most beautiful garments, and Periander set his guards there and stripped them all alike, ladies and serving-women, and heaped all the clothes in a pit, where, as he prayed to Melissa, he burnt them. ,When he had done this and sent a second message, the ghost of Melissa told him where the deposit of the friend had been laid. “This, then, Lacedaimonians, is the nature of tyranny, and such are its deeds. ,We Corinthians marvelled greatly when we saw that you were sending for Hippias, and now we marvel yet more at your words to us. We entreat you earnestly in the name of the gods of Hellas not to establish tyranny in the cities, but if you do not cease from so doing and unrighteously attempt to bring Hippias back, be assured that you are proceeding without the Corinthians' consent.” 6.49. So the cities set about these preparations. The heralds who went to Hellas received what the king's proclamation demanded from many of those dwelling on the mainland and from all the islanders to whom they came with the demand. Among the islanders who gave earth and water to Darius were the Aeginetans. ,The Athenians immediately came down upon them for doing this, for they supposed the Aeginetans to have given the gift out of enmity for Athens, so they might join with the Persians in attacking the Athenians. Gladly laying hold of this pretext, they went to Sparta and there accused the Aeginetans of acting to betray Hellas. 6.51. All this time Demaratus son of Ariston remained at Sparta and spread evil reports of Cleomenes. This Demaratus was also king of Sparta, but of the inferior house; not indeed inferior in any other regard (for they have a common ancestor), but the house of Eurysthenes has in some sort the greater honor by right of primogeniture. 6.52. The Lacedaemonians say (but no poet agrees) that it was Aristodemus son of Aristomachus son of Cleodaeus son of Hyllus, and not his sons, who led them to that land which they now possess. ,After no long time Aristodemus' wife, whose name was Argeia, bore him offspring; they say she was daughter of Autesion son of Tisamenus son of Thersander son of Polynices; she bore him twins; Aristodemus lived to see the children, then died of a sickness. ,The Lacedaemonians of that day planned to follow their custom and make the eldest of the children king. But the children were identical in all respects, so the Lacedaemonians did not know which to choose; when they could not judge between them, or perhaps even before this, they asked the mother. ,She said she knew no better than the Lacedaemonians which was the elder; she knew perfectly well, but she said this because she desired that by some means both might be made kings. The Lacedaemonians were at a loss, so they sent to Delphi to inquire how they should deal with the matter. ,The priestess bade them make both children kings but give greater honor to the elder. When the priestess gave this response, the Lacedaemonians knew no better than before how to discover the elder child, and a man of Messenia, whose name was Panites, gave them advice: ,he advised them to watch the mother and see which of the children she washed and fed before the other; if she was seen to do this always in the same order, they would then have all that they sought and desired to discover; but if she changed her practice haphazardly, then it would be manifest to the Lacedaemonians that she know no more than they did, and they must have recourse to some other means. ,Then the Spartans did as the Messenian advised; as they watched the mother of Aristodemus' children, they found her always preferring the elder when she fed and washed them, since she did not know why she was being watched. So they took the child that was preferred by its mother and brought it up at public expense as the first-born; and they called it Eurysthenes, and the other Procles. ,They say that when these two brothers grew to manhood, they feuded with each other as long as they lived, and their descendants continued to do likewise. 6.53. The Lacedaemonians are the only Greeks who tell this story. But in what I write I follow the Greek report, and hold that the Greeks correctly recount these kings of the Dorians as far back as Perseus son of Danae—they make no mention of the god —and prove these kings to be Greek; for by that time they had come to be classified as Greeks. ,I said as far back as Perseus, and I took the matter no further than that, because no one is named as the mortal father of Perseus, as Amphitryon is named father of Heracles. So I used correct reasoning when I said that the Greek record is correct as far back as Perseus; farther back than that, if the king's ancestors in each generation, from Danae daughter of Acrisius upward, be reckoned, then the leaders of the Dorians will be shown to be true-born Egyptians. 6.54. Thus have I traced their lineage according to the Greek story; but the Persian tale is that Perseus himself was an Assyrian, and became a Greek, which his forebears had not been; the Persians say that the ancestors of Acrisius had no bond of kinship with Perseus, and they indeed were, as the Greeks say, Egyptians. 6.55. Enough of these matters. Why and for what achievements these men, being Egyptian, won the kingship of the Dorians has been told by others, so I will let it go, and will make mention of matters which others have not touched. 6.57. Such are their rights in war; in peace the powers given them are as follows: at all public sacrifices the kings first sit down to the banquet and are first served, each of them receiving a portion double of what is given to the rest of the company; they make the first libations, and the hides of the sacrificed beasts are theirs. ,At each new moon and each seventh day of the first part of the month, a full-grown victim for Apollo's temple, a bushel of barley-meal, and a Laconian quart of wine are given to each from the public store, and chief seats are set apart for them at the games. ,It is their right to appoint whatever citizens they wish to be protectors of foreigners; and they each choose two Pythians. (The Pythians are the ambassadors to Delphi and eat with the kings at the public expense.) If the kings do not come to the public dinner, two choenixes of barley-meal and half a pint of wine are sent to their houses, but when they come, they receive a double share of everything; and the same honor shall be theirs when they are invited by private citizens to dinner. ,They keep all oracles that are given, though the Pythians also know them. The kings alone judge cases concerning the rightful possessor of an unwedded heiress, if her father has not betrothed her, and cases concerning public roads. ,If a man desires to adopt a son, it is done in the presence of the kings. They sit with the twenty-eight elders in council; if they do not come, the elders most closely related to them hold the king's privilege, giving two votes over and above the third which is their own. 6.58. The kings are granted these rights from the Spartan commonwealth while they live; when they die, their rights are as follows: Horsemen proclaim their death in all parts of Laconia, and in the city women go about beating on cauldrons. When this happens, two free persons from each house, a man and a woman, are required to wear mourning, or incur heavy penalties if they fail to do so. ,The Lacedaemonians have the same custom at the deaths of their kings as the foreigners in Asia; most foreigners use the same custom at their kings' deaths. When a king of the Lacedaemonians dies, a fixed number of their subject neighbors must come to the funeral from all Lacedaemon, besides the Spartans. ,When these and the helots and the Spartans themselves have assembled in one place to the number of many thousands, together with the women, they zealously beat their foreheads and make long and loud lamentation, calling that king that is most recently dead the best of all their kings. Whenever a king dies in war, they make an image of him and carry it out on a well-spread bier. For ten days after the burial there are no assemblies or elections, and they mourn during these days. 6.59. The Lacedaemonians also resemble the Persians in this: when one king is dead and another takes his office, this successor releases from debt any Spartan who owes a debt to the king or to the commonwealth. Among the Persians the king at the beginning of his reign forgives all cities their arrears of tribute. 6.60. The Lacedaemonians resemble the Egyptians in that their heralds and flute-players and cooks inherit the craft from their fathers, a flute-player's son being a flute-player, and a cook's son a cook, and a herald's son a herald; no others usurp their places, making themselves heralds by loudness of voice; they ply their craft by right of birth. Such is the way of these matters. 6.61. While Cleomenes was in Aegina working for the common good of Hellas, Demaratus slandered him, not out of care for the Aeginetans, but out of jealousy and envy. Once Cleomenes returned home from Aegina, he planned to remove Demaratus from his kingship, using the following affair as a pretext against him: Ariston, king of Sparta, had married twice but had no children. ,He did not admit that he himself was responsible, so he married a third time. This is how it came about: he had among the Spartans a friend to whom he was especially attached. This man's wife was by far the most beautiful woman in Sparta, but she who was now most beautiful had once been the ugliest. ,Her nurse considered her inferior looks and how she was of wealthy people yet unattractive, and, seeing how the parents felt her appearance to be a great misfortune, she contrived to carry the child every day to the sacred precinct of Helen, which is in the place called Therapne, beyond the sacred precinct of Phoebus. Every time the nurse carried the child there, she set her beside the image and beseeched the goddess to release the child from her ugliness. ,Once as she was leaving the sacred precinct, it is said that a woman appeared to her and asked her what she was carrying in her arms. The nurse said she was carrying a child and the woman bade her show it to her, but she refused, saying that the parents had forbidden her to show it to anyone. But the woman strongly bade her show it to her, ,and when the nurse saw how important it was to her, she showed her the child. The woman stroked the child's head and said that she would be the most beautiful woman in all Sparta. From that day her looks changed, and when she reached the time for marriage, Agetus son of Alcidas married her. This man was Ariston's friend. 6.62. So love for this woman pricked Ariston, and he contrived as follows: He promised to give to his comrade any one thing out of all he owned, whatever Agetus might choose, and he bade his comrade make him the same promise. Agetus had no fear about his wife, seeing that Ariston was already married, so he agreed and they took oaths on these terms. ,Ariston gave Agetus whatever it was that he chose out of all his treasures, and then, seeking equal recompense from him, tried to take the wife of his comrade. Agetus said that he had agreed to anything but that, but he was forced by his oath and by the deceitful trick to let his wife be taken. 6.63. In this way Ariston married his third wife, after divorcing the second one. But his new wife gave birth to Demaratus too soon, before ten lunar months had passed. ,When one of his servants announced to him as he sat in council with the ephors that he had a son, Ariston, knowing the time of the marriage, counted up the months on his fingers and swore on oath, “It's not mine.” The ephors heard this but did not make anything of it. When the boy grew up, Ariston regretted having said that, for he firmly believed Demaratus to be his own son. ,He named him Demaratus because before his birth all the Spartan populace had prayed that Ariston, the man most highly esteemed out of all the kings of Sparta, might have a son. Thus he was named Demaratus, which means “answer to the people's prayer.” 6.64. Time passed and Ariston died, so Demaratus held the kingship. But it seems that these matters had to become known and cause Demaratus to lose his kingship. He had already fallen out with Cleomenes when he had brought the army back from Eleusis, and now they were even more at odds when Cleomenes crossed over after the Aeginetans who were Medizing. 6.65. Cleomenes wanted revenge, so he made a deal with Leotychides son of Menares son of Agis, of the same family as Demaratus. The deal was that Leotychides would go with Cleomenes against the Aeginetans if he became king. ,Leotychides had already become strongly hostile to Demaratus for the following reason: Leotychides was betrothed to Percalus, daughter of Demarmenus, but Demaratus plotted and robbed him of his marriage, stealing Percalus and marrying her first. ,From this affair Leotychides was hostile toward Demaratus, so at Cleomenes' instigation he took an oath against him, saying that he was not king of the Spartans by right, since he was not Ariston's son. After making this oath, he prosecuted him, recalling that utterance which Ariston had made when the servant told him he had a son, and he counted up the months and swore that it was not his. ,Taking his stand on this remark, Leotychides declared that Demaratus was not Ariston's son and that he was not rightly king of Sparta, bringing as witnesses the ephors who had been sitting beside Ariston and heard him say this. 6.66. Disputes arose over it, so the Spartans resolved to ask the oracle at Delphi if Demaratus was the son of Ariston. ,At Cleomenes' instigation this was revealed to the Pythia. He had won over a man of great influence among the Delphians, Cobon son of Aristophantus, and Cobon persuaded the priestess, Periallus, to say what Cleomenes wanted her to. ,When the ambassadors asked if Demaratus was the son of Ariston, the Pythia gave judgment that he was not. All this came to light later; Cobon was exiled from Delphi, and Periallus was deposed from her position. 6.67. So it was concerning Demaratus' loss of the kingship, and from Sparta he went into exile among the Medes because of the following reproach: after he was deposed from the kingship, he was elected to office. ,When it was the time of the dateGymnopaidia /date, Leotychides, now king in his place, saw him in the audience and, as a joke and an insult, sent a messenger to him to ask what it was like to hold office after being king. ,He was grieved by the question and said that he had experience of both, while Leotychides did not, and that this question would be the beginning for Sparta of either immense evil or immense good fortune. He said this, covered his head, left the theater, and went home, where he immediately made preparations and sacrificed an ox to Zeus. Then he summoned his mother. 6.68. When she came in, he put some of the entrails in her hands and entreated her, saying, “Mother, appealing to Zeus of the household and to all the other gods, I beseech you to tell me the truth. Who is my father? Tell me truly. ,Leotychides said in the disputes that you were already pregt by your former husband when you came to Ariston. Others say more foolishly that you approached to one of the servants, the ass-keeper, and that I am his son. ,I adjure you by the gods to speak what is true. If you have done anything of what they say, you are not the only one; you are in company with many women. There is much talk at Sparta that Ariston did not have child-bearing seed in him, or his former wives would have given him children.” 6.69. Thus he spoke. His mother answered, “My son, since you adjure me by entreaties to speak the truth, I will speak out to you all that is true. On the third night after Ariston brought me to his house, a phantom resembling him came to me. It came and lay with me and then put on me the garlands which it had. ,It went away, and when Ariston came in later and saw me with the garlands, he asked who gave them to me. I said he did, but he denied it. I swore an oath that just a little while before he had come in and lain with me and given me the garlands, and I said it was not good of him to deny it. ,When he saw me swearing, he perceived that this was some divine affair. For the garlands had clearly come from the hero's precinct which is established at the courtyard doors, which they call the precinct of Astrabacus, and the seers responded that this was the same hero who had come to me. Thus, my son, you have all you want to know. ,Either you are from this hero and Astrabacus the hero is your father, or Ariston is, for I conceived you that night. As for how your enemies chiefly attack you, saying that Ariston himself, when your birth was announced, denied in front of a large audience that you were his because the ten months had not yet been completed, he spoke an idle word, out of ignorance of such things. ,Some women give birth after nine months or seven months; not all complete the ten months. I gave birth to you, my son, after seven months. A little later Ariston himself recognized that he had blurted out that speech because of foolishness. Do not believe other stories about your manner of birth. You have heard the whole truth. May the wife of Leotychides himself, and the wives of the others who say these things, give birth to children fathered by ass-keepers.” 6.72. But Leutychides also did not come to old age in Sparta; he was punished for his dealings with Demaratus as I will show. He led a Lacedaemonian army to Thessaly, and when he could have subdued all the country he took a great bribe. ,After being caught in the act of hoarding a sleeve full of silver there in the camp, he was brought before a court and banished from Sparta, and his house was destroyed. He went into exile at Tegea and died in that country. 6.73. This happened long afterwards. When Cleomenes' dealings with Demaratus came off successfully, he immediately took Leutychides with him and went to punish the Aeginetans, with whom he was terribly angry because of their insulting behavior. ,When the Aeginetans saw that both kings had come after them, they now deemed it best to offer no further resistance; the kings chose ten men of Aegina who were most honored for wealth and lineage, among them Crius son of Polycritus and Casambus son of Aristocrates, the two most powerful men in Aegina; they carried them to Attica and gave them into the keeping of the Athenians, the bitterest foes of the Aeginetans. 6.74. Later Cleomenes' treacherous plot against Demaratus became known; he was seized with fear of the Spartans and secretly fled to Thessaly. From there he came to Arcadia and stirred up disorder, uniting the Arcadians against Sparta; among his methods of binding them by oath to follow him wherever he led was his zeal to bring the chief men of Arcadia to the city of Nonacris and make them swear by the water of the Styx. ,Near this city is said to be the Arcadian water of the Styx, and this is its nature: it is a stream of small appearance, dropping from a cliff into a pool; a wall of stones runs round the pool. Nonacris, where this spring rises, is a city of Arcadia near Pheneus. 6.75. When the Lacedaemonians learned that Cleomenes was doing this, they took fright and brought him back to Sparta to rule on the same terms as before. Cleomenes had already been not entirely in his right mind, and on his return from exile a mad sickness fell upon him: any Spartan that he happened to meet he would hit in the face with his staff. ,For doing this, and because he was out of his mind, his relatives bound him in the stocks. When he was in the stocks and saw that his guard was left alone, he demanded a dagger; the guard at first refused to give it, but Cleomenes threatened what he would do to him when he was freed, until the guard, who was a helot, was frightened by the threats and gave him the dagger. ,Cleomenes took the weapon and set about slashing himself from his shins upwards; from the shin to the thigh he cut his flesh lengthways, then from the thigh to the hip and the sides, until he reached the belly, and cut it into strips; thus he died, as most of the Greeks say, because he persuaded the Pythian priestess to tell the tale of Demaratus. The Athenians alone say it was because he invaded Eleusis and laid waste the precinct of the gods. The Argives say it was because when Argives had taken refuge after the battle in their temple of Argus he brought them out and cut them down, then paid no heed to the sacred grove and set it on fire. 6.76. As Cleomenes was seeking divination at Delphi, the oracle responded that he would take Argos. When he came with Spartans to the river Erasinus, which is said to flow from the Stymphalian lake (this lake issues into a cleft out of sight and reappears at Argos, and from that place onwards the stream is called by the Argives Erasinus)—when Cleomenes came to this river he offered sacrifices to it. ,The omens were in no way favorable for his crossing, so he said that he honored the Erasinus for not betraying its countrymen, but even so the Argives would not go unscathed. Then he withdrew and led his army seaward to Thyrea, where he sacrificed a bull to the sea and carried his men on shipboard to the region of Tiryns and to Nauplia. 6.77. The Argives heard of this and came to the coast to do battle with him. When they had come near Tiryns and were at the place called Hesipeia, they encamped opposite the Lacedaemonians, leaving only a little space between the armies. There the Argives had no fear of fair fighting, but rather of being captured by a trick. ,This was the affair referred to by that oracle which the Pythian priestess gave to the Argives and Milesians in common, which ran thus: quote type="oracle" l met="dact"When the female defeats the male /l lAnd drives him away, winning glory in Argos, /l lShe will make many Argive women tear their cheeks. /l lAs someday one of men to come will say: /l lThe dread thrice-coiled serpent died tamed by the spear. /l /quote ,All these things coming together spread fear among the Argives. Therefore they resolved to defend themselves by making use of the enemies' herald, and they performed their resolve in this way: whenever the Spartan herald signalled anything to the Lacedaemonians, the Argives did the same thing. 6.78. When Cleomenes saw that the Argives did whatever was signalled by his herald, he commanded that when the herald cried the signal for breakfast, they should then put on their armor and attack the Argives. ,The Lacedaemonians performed this command, and when they assaulted the Argives they caught them at breakfast in obedience to the herald's signal; they killed many of them, and far more fled for refuge into the grove of Argus, which the Lacedaemonians encamped around and guarded. 6.79. Then Cleomenes' plan was this: He had with him some deserters from whom he learned the names, then he sent a herald calling by name the Argives that were shut up in the sacred precinct and inviting them to come out, saying that he had their ransom. (Among the Peloponnesians there is a fixed ransom of two minae to be paid for every prisoner.) So Cleomenes invited about fifty Argives to come out one after another and murdered them. ,Somehow the rest of the men in the temple precinct did not know this was happening, for the grove was thick and those inside could not see how those outside were faring, until one of them climbed a tree and saw what was being done. Thereafter they would not come out at the herald's call. 6.80. Then Cleomenes bade all the helots pile wood about the grove; they obeyed, and he burnt the grove. When the fire was now burning, he asked of one of the deserters to what god the grove belonged; the man said it was of Argos. When he heard that, he groaned aloud, “Apollo, god of oracles, you have gravely deceived me by saying that I would take Argos; this, I guess, is the fulfillment of that prophecy.” 6.81. Then Cleomenes sent most of his army back to Sparta, while he himself took a thousand of the best warriors and went to the temple of Hera to sacrifice. When he wished to sacrifice at the altar the priest forbade him, saying that it was not holy for a stranger to sacrifice there. Cleomenes ordered the helots to carry the priest away from the altar and whip him, and he performed the sacrifice. After doing this, he returned to Sparta. 6.82. But after his return his enemies brought him before the ephors, saying that he had been bribed not to take Argos when he might have easily taken it. Cleomenes alleged (whether falsely or truly, I cannot rightly say; but this he alleged in his speech) that he had supposed the god's oracle to be fulfilled by his taking of the temple of Argus; therefore he had thought it best not to make any attempt on the city before he had learned from the sacrifices whether the god would deliver it to him or withstand him; ,when he was taking omens in Hera's temple a flame of fire had shone forth from the breast of the image, and so he learned the truth of the matter, that he would not take Argos. If the flame had come out of the head of the image, he would have taken the city from head to foot utterly; but its coming from the breast signified that he had done as much as the god willed to happen. This plea of his seemed to the Spartans to be credible and reasonable, and he far outdistanced the pursuit of his accusers. 6.83. But Argos was so wholly deprived of men that their slaves took possession of all affairs, ruling and governing until the sons of the slain men grew up. Then they recovered Argos for themselves and cast out the slaves; when they were driven out, the slaves took possession of Tiryns by force. ,For a while they were at peace with each other; but then there came to the slaves a prophet, Cleander, a man of Phigalea in Arcadia by birth; he persuaded the slaves to attack their masters. From that time there was a long-lasting war between them, until with difficulty the Argives got the upper hand. 6.84. The Argives say this was the reason Cleomenes went mad and met an evil end; the Spartans themselves say that Cleomenes' madness arose from no divine agent, but that by consorting with Scythians he became a drinker of strong wine, and the madness came from this. ,The nomadic Scythians, after Darius had invaded their land, were eager for revenge, so they sent to Sparta and made an alliance. They agreed that the Scythians would attempt to invade Media by way of the river Phasis, and they urged the Spartans to set out and march inland from Ephesus and meet the Scythians. ,They say that when the Scythians had come for this purpose, Cleomenes kept rather close company with them, and by consorting with them more than was fitting he learned from them to drink strong wine. The Spartans consider him to have gone mad from this. Ever since, as they themselves say, whenever they desire a strong drink they call for “a Scythian cup.” Such is the Spartan story of Cleomenes; but to my thinking it was for what he did to Demaratus that he was punished thus. 6.85. When the Aeginetans heard that Cleomenes was dead, they sent messengers to Sparta to cry out against Leutychides concerning the hostages that were held at Athens. The Lacedaemonians then assembled a court and gave judgment that Leutychides had done violence to the Aeginetans; and they condemned him to be given up and carried to Aegina in requital for the men that were held at Athens. ,But when the Aeginetans were about to carry Leutychides away, a man of repute at Sparta, Theasides son of Leoprepes, said to them, “Men of Aegina, what are you planning to do? To have the king of the Spartans given up to you by the citizens and carry him away? If the Spartans have now so judged in their anger, see that they do not bring utter destruction upon your country if you do this.” ,The Aeginetans heard this and refrained from carrying the king away, and made an agreement that Leutychides should go with them to Athens and restore the men to the Aeginetans. 6.86. When Leutychides came to Athens and demanded back the hostages, the Athenians were unwilling to give them back and made excuses, saying that two kings had given them the trust and they deemed it wrong to restore it to one without the other. ,When the Athenians refused to give them back, Leutychides said to them: “Men of Athens, do whichever thing you desire. If you give them back, you do righteously; if you do not give them back, you do the opposite. But I want to tell you the story of what happened at Sparta in the matter of a trust. ,We Spartans say that three generations ago there was at Lacedaemon one Glaucus, the son of Epicydes. We say that this man added to his other excellences a reputation for justice above all men who at that time dwelt in Lacedaemon. ,But we say that at the fitting time this befell him: There came to Sparta a certain man of Miletus, who desired to have a talk with Glaucus and made him this offer: ‘I am a Milesian, and I have come to have the benefit of your justice, Glaucus. ,Since there is much talk about your justice throughout all the rest of Hellas, and even in Ionia, I considered the fact that Ionia is always in danger while the Peloponnese is securely established, and nowhere in Ionia are the same men seen continuing in possession of wealth. ,Considering and taking counsel concerning these matters, I resolved to turn half of my property into silver and deposit it with you, being well assured that it will lie safe for me in your keeping. Accept the money for me, and take and keep these tokens; restore the money to whoever comes with the same tokens and demands it back.’ ,Thus spoke the stranger who had come from Miletus, and Glaucus received the trust according to the agreement. After a long time had passed, the sons of the man who had deposited the money came to Sparta; they spoke with Glaucus, showing him the tokens and demanding the money back. ,But Glaucus put them off and answered in turn: ‘I do not remember the matter, and nothing of what you say carries my mind back. Let me think; I wish to do all that is just. If I took the money, I will duly restore it; if I never took it at all, I will deal with you according to the customs of the Greeks. I will put off making my decision for you until the fourth month from this day.’ ,So the Milesians went away in sorrow, as men robbed of their possessions; but Glaucus journeyed to Delphi to question the oracle. When he asked the oracle whether he should seize the money under oath, the Pythian priestess threatened him in these verses: , quote type="oracle" l met="dact" Glaucus son of Epicydes, it is more profitable now /l lTo prevail by your oath and seize the money. /l lSwear, for death awaits even the man who swears true. /l lBut Oath has a son, nameless; he is without hands /l lOr feet, but he pursues swiftly, until he catches /l lAnd destroys all the family and the entire house. /l lThe line of a man who swears true is better later on. /l /quote When Glaucus heard this, he entreated the god to pardon him for what he had said. The priestess answered that to tempt the god and to do the deed had the same effect. ,So Glaucus summoned the Milesian strangers and gave them back their money. But hear now, Athenians, why I began to tell you this story: there is today no descendant of Glaucus, nor any household that bears Glaucus' name; he has been utterly rooted out of Sparta. So good is it not even to think anything concerning a trust except giving it back on demand!” 6.91. But this happened later. The rich men of Aegina gained mastery over the people, who had risen against them with Nicodromus, then made them captive and led them out to be killed. Because of this a curse fell upon them, which despite all their efforts they could not get rid of by sacrifice, and they were driven out of their island before the goddess would be merciful to them. ,They had taken seven hundred of the people alive; as they led these out for slaughter one of them escaped from his bonds and fled to the temple gate of Demeter the Lawgiver, where he laid hold of the door-handles and clung to them. They could not tear him away by force, so they cut off his hands and carried him off, and those hands were left clinging fast to the door-handles. 6.92. Thus the Aeginetans dealt with each other. When the Athenians came, they fought them at sea with seventy ships; the Aeginetans were defeated in the sea-fight and asked for help from the Argives, as they had done before. But this time the Argives would not aid them, holding a grudge because ships of Aegina had been taken by force by Cleomenes and put in on the Argolid coast, where their crews landed with the Lacedaemonians; men from ships of Sicyon also took part in the same invasion. ,The Argives laid on them the payment of a fine of a thousand talents, five hundred each. The Sicyonians confessed that they had done wrong and agreed to go free with a payment of a hundred talents, but the Aeginetans made no such confession and remained stubborn. For this cause the Argive state sent no one to aid them at their request, but about a thousand came voluntarily, led by a captain whose name was Eurybates, a man who practiced the pentathlon. ,Most of these never returned, meeting their death at the hands of the Athenians in Aegina; Eurybates himself, their captain, fought in single combat and thus killed three men, but was slain by the fourth, Sophanes the son of Deceles. 7.60. I cannot give the exact number that each part contributed to the total, for there is no one who tells us that; but the total of the whole land army was shown to be one million and seven hundred thousand. ,They were counted in this way: ten thousand men were collected in one place, and when they were packed together as closely as could be a line was drawn around them; when this was drawn, the ten thousand were sent away and a wall of stones was built on the line reaching up to a man's navel; ,when this was done, others were brought into the walled space, until in this way all were numbered. When they had been numbered, they were marshalled by nations. 7.61. The men who served in the army were the following: the Persians were equipped in this way: they wore on their heads loose caps called tiaras, and on their bodies embroidered sleeved tunics, with scales of iron like the scales of fish in appearance, and trousers on their legs; for shields they had wicker bucklers, with quivers hanging beneath them; they carried short spears, long bows, and reed arrows, and daggers that hung from the girdle by the right thigh. ,Their commander was Otanes, son of Amestris and father of Xerxes' wife. They were formerly called by the Greeks Cephenes, but by themselves and their neighbors Artaei. ,When Perseus son of Danae and Zeus had come to Cepheus son of Belus and married his daughter Andromeda, a son was born to him whom he called Perses, and he left him there; for Cepheus had no male offspring; it was from this Perses that the Persians took their name. 7.62. The Medes in the army were equipped like the Persians; indeed, that fashion of armor is Median, not Persian. Their commander was Tigranes, an Achaemenid. The Medes were formerly called by everyone Arians, but when the Colchian woman Medea came from Athens to the Arians they changed their name, like the Persians. This is the Medes' own account of themselves. ,The Cissians in the army were equipped like the Persians, but they wore turbans instead of caps. Their commander was Anaphes son of Otanes. The Hyrcanians were armed like the Persians; their leader was Megapanus, who was afterwards the governor of Babylon. 7.63. The Assyrians in the army wore on their heads helmets of twisted bronze made in an outlandish fashion not easy to describe. They carried shields and spears and daggers of Egyptian fashion, and also wooden clubs studded with iron, and they wore linen breastplates. They are called by the Greeks Syrians, but the foreigners called them Assyrians. With them were the Chaldeans. Their commander was Otaspes son of Artachaees. 7.64. The Bactrians in the army wore a headgear very similar to the Median, carrying their native reed bows and short spears. ,The Sacae, who are Scythians, had on their heads tall caps, erect and stiff and tapering to a point; they wore trousers, and carried their native bows, and daggers, and also axes which they call “sagaris.” These were Amyrgian Scythians, but were called Sacae; that is the Persian name for all Scythians. The commander of the Bactrians and Sacae was Hystaspes, son of Darius and Cyrus' daughter Atossa. 7.65. The Indians wore garments of tree-wool, and carried reed bows and iron-tipped reed arrows. Such was their equipment; they were appointed to march under the command of Pharnazathres son of Artabates. 7.66. The Arians were equipped with Median bows, but in all else like the Bactrians; their commander was Sisamnes son of Hydarnes. The Parthians, Chorasmians, Sogdians, Gandarians, and Dadicae in the army had the same equipment as the Bactrians. ,The Parthians and Chorasmians had for their commander Artabazus son of Pharnaces, the Sogdians Azanes son of Artaeus, the Gandarians and Dadicae Artyphius son of Artabanus. 7.67. The Caspians in the army wore cloaks and carried their native reed bows and short swords. Such was their equipment; their leader was Ariomardus, brother of Artyphius. The Sarangae were conspicuous in their dyed garments and knee-high boots, carrying bows and Median spears. Their commander was Pherendates son of Megabazus. ,The Pactyes wore cloaks and carried their native bows and daggers; their commander was Artayntes son of Ithamitres. 7.68. The Utians and Mycians and Paricanians were equipped like the Pactyes; the Utians and Mycians had for their commander Arsamenes son of Darius, the Paricanians Siromitres son of Oeobazus. 7.69. The Arabians wore mantles girded up, and carried at their right side long bows curving backwards. The Ethiopians were wrapped in skins of leopards and lions, and carried bows made of palmwood strips, no less than four cubits long, and short arrows pointed not with iron but with a sharpened stone that they use to carve seals; furthermore, they had spears pointed with a gazelle's horn sharpened like a lance, and also studded clubs. ,When they went into battle they painted half their bodies with gypsum and the other half with vermilion. The Arabians and the Ethiopians who dwell above Egypt had as commander Arsames, the son of Darius and Artystone daughter of Cyrus, whom Darius loved best of his wives; he had an image made of her of hammered gold. 7.70. The Ethiopians above Egypt and the Arabians had Arsames for commander, while the Ethiopians of the east (for there were two kinds of them in the army) served with the Indians; they were not different in appearance from the others, only in speech and hair: the Ethiopians from the east are straight-haired, but the ones from Libya have the woolliest hair of all men. ,These Ethiopians of Asia were for the most part armed like the Indians; but they wore on their heads the skins of horses' foreheads, stripped from the head with ears and mane; the mane served them for a crest, and they wore the horses' ears stiff and upright; for shields they had bucklers of the skin of cranes. 7.71. The Libyans came in leather garments, using javelins of burnt wood. Their commander was Massages son of Oarizus. 7.72. The Paphlagonians in the army had woven helmets on their heads, and small shields and short spears, and also javelins and daggers; they wore their native shoes that reach midway to the knee. The Ligyes and Matieni and Mariandyni and Syrians were equipped like the Paphlagonians. These Syrians are called by the Persians Cappadocians. ,Dotus son of Megasidrus was commander of the Paphlagonians and Matieni, Gobryas son of Darius and Artystone of the Mariandyni and Ligyes and Syrians. 7.73. The Phrygian equipment was very similar to the Paphlagonian, with only a small difference. As the Macedonians say, these Phrygians were called Briges as long as they dwelt in Europe, where they were neighbors of the Macedonians; but when they changed their home to Asia, they changed their name also and were called Phrygians. The Armenians, who are settlers from Phrygia, were armed like the Phrygians. Both these together had as their commander Artochmes, who had married a daughter of Darius. 7.74. The Lydian armor was most similar to the Greek. The Lydians were formerly called Meiones, until they changed their name and were called after Lydus son of Atys. The Mysians wore on their heads their native helmets, carrying small shields and javelins of burnt wood. ,They are settlers from Lydia, and are called Olympieni after the mountain Olympus. The commander of the Lydians and Mysians was that Artaphrenes son of Artaphrenes, who attacked Marathon with Datis. 7.75. The Thracians in the army wore fox-skin caps on their heads, and tunics on their bodies; over these they wore embroidered mantles; they had shoes of fawnskin on their feet and legs; they also had javelins and little shields and daggers. ,They took the name of Bithynians after they crossed over to Asia; before that they were called (as they themselves say) Strymonians, since they lived by the Strymon; they say that they were driven from their homes by Teucrians and Mysians. The commander of the Thracians of Asia was Bassaces son of Artabanus. 7.76. The <Pisidians> had little shields of raw oxhide; each man carried two wolf-hunters' spears; they wore helmets of bronze, and on these helmets were the ears and horns of oxen wrought in bronze, and also crests; their legs were wrapped around with strips of purple rags. Among these men is a place of divination sacred to Ares. 7.77. The Cabelees, who are Meiones and are called Lasonii, had the same equipment as the Cilicians; when I come in my narrative to the place of the Cilicians, I will then declare what it was. The Milyae had short spears and garments fastened by brooches; some of them carried Lycian bows and wore caps of skin on their heads. The commander of all these was Badres son of Hystanes. 7.78. The Moschi wore wooden helmets on their heads, and carried shields and small spears with long points. The Tibareni and Macrones and Mossynoeci in the army were equipped like the Moschi. The commanders who marshalled them were, for the Moschi and Tibareni, Ariomardus son of Darius and Parmys, the daughter of Cyrus' son Smerdis; for the Macrones and Mossynoeci, Artayctes son of Cherasmis, who was governor of Sestus on the Hellespont. 7.79. The Mares wore on their heads their native woven helmets, and carried javelins and small hide shields. The Colchians had wooden helmets and small shields of raw oxhide and short spears, and also swords. The commander of the Mares and Colchians was Pharandates son of Teaspis. The Alarodians and Saspires in the army were armed like the Colchians; Masistius son of Siromitres was their commander. 7.80. The island tribes that came from the Red Sea, and from the islands where the king settles those who are called Exiles, wore dress and armor very similar to the Median. The commander of these islanders was Mardontes son of Bagaeus, who in the next year was general at Mykale and died in the battle. 7.81. These are the nations that marched by the mainland and had their places in the infantry. The commanders of this army were those whom I have mentioned, and they were the ones who marshalled and numbered them and appointed captains of thousands and ten thousands; the captains of ten thousands appointed the captains of hundreds and of tens. There were others who were leaders of companies and nations. 7.82. These were the commanders, as I have said; the generals of these and of the whole infantry were Mardonius son of Gobryas, Tritantaechmes son of that Artabanus who delivered the opinion that there should be no expedition against Hellas, Smerdomenes son of Otanes (these two latter were sons of Darius' brothers, and thus they were Xerxes' cousins), Masistes son of Darius and Atossa, Gergis son of Ariazus, and Megabyzus son of Zopyrus. 7.83. These were the generals of the whole infantry, except the Ten Thousand. Hydarnes son of Hydarnes was general of these picked ten thousand Persians, who were called Immortals for this reason: when any one of them was forced to fall out of the number by death or sickness, another was chosen so that they were never more or fewer than ten thousand. ,The Persians showed the richest adornment of all, and they were the best men in the army. Their equipment was such as I have said; beyond this they stood out by the abundance of gold that they had. They also brought carriages bearing concubines and many well-equipped servants; camels and beasts of burden carried food for them, apart from the rest of the army. 7.84. There are horsemen in these nations, but not all of them furnished cavalry. Only the following did so: the Persians, equipped like their infantry, except that some of them wore headgear of hammered bronze and iron. 7.85. There are also certain nomads called Sagartian; they are Persian in speech, and the fashion of their equipment is somewhat between the Persian and the Pactyan; they furnished eight thousand horsemen. It is their custom to carry no armor of bronze or iron, except only daggers, and to use ropes of twisted leather. ,They go to battle relying on these. This is the manner of fighting of these men: when they are at close quarters with their enemy, they throw their ropes, which have a noose at the end; whatever he catches, horse or man, each man drags to himself, and the enemy is entangled in the coils and slain. Such is their manner of fighting; they were marshalled with the Persians. 7.86. The Median cavalry were equipped like their infantry, and the Cissians similarly. The Indians were armed in the same manner as their infantry; they rode swift horses and drove chariots drawn by horses and wild asses. The Bactrians were equipped as were their foot, and the Caspians in the same manner. ,The Libyans, too, were armed like the men of their infantry, and all of them also drove chariots. In the same manner the Caspians and Paricanians were armed as the men of their infantry. The Arabians had the same equipment as the men of their infantry, and all of them rode on camels no less swift than horses. 7.87. These nations alone were on horseback; the number of the horsemen was shown to be eighty thousand, besides the camels and the chariots. All the rest of the horsemen were ranked with their companies, but the Arabians were posted last. Since horses cannot endure camels, their place was in the rear, so that the horses would not be frightened. 7.88. The captains of cavalry were Harmamithres and Tithaeus, sons of Datis; the third who was captain with them, Pharnuches, had been left behind sick at Sardis. As they set forth from Sardis, an unwelcome mishap befell him: a dog ran under the feet of the horse he was riding, and the horse was taken by surprise and frightened, so it reared up and threw Pharnuches; after his fall he vomited blood and began to waste away. ,The horse was immediately dealt with according to Pharnuces' command; his servants led it away to the place where it had thrown their master, and cut off its legs at the knee. Thus it was that Pharnuches lost his command. 7.89. The number of the triremes was twelve hundred and seven, and they were furnished by the following: the Phoenicians with the Syrians of Palestine furnished three hundred; for their equipment, they had on their heads helmets very close to the Greek in style; they wore linen breastplates, and carried shields without rims, and javelins. ,These Phoenicians formerly dwelt, as they themselves say, by the Red Sea; they crossed from there and now inhabit the seacoast of Syria. This part of Syria as far as Egypt is all called Palestine. ,The Egyptians furnished two hundred ships. They wore woven helmets and carried hollow shields with broad rims, and spears for sea-warfare, and great battle-axes. Most of them wore cuirasses and carried long swords. 7.90. Such was their armor. The Cyprians furnished a hundred and fifty ships; for their equipment, their princes wore turbans wrapped around their heads, and the people wore tunics, but in all else they were like the Greeks. These are their tribes: some are from Salamis and Athens, some from Arcadia, some from Cythnus, some from Phoenice, and some from Ethiopia, as the Cyprians themselves say. 7.91. The Cilicians furnished a hundred ships. They also wore on their heads their native helmets, carried bucklers of raw oxhide for shields, and were clad in woollen tunics; each had two javelins and a sword very close in style to the knives of Egypt. These Cilicians were formerly called Hypachaei, and took their name from Cilix son of Agenor, a Phoenician. The Pamphylians furnished a hundred ships: they were armed like the Greeks. These Pamphylians are descended from the Trojans of the diaspora who followed Amphilochus and Calchas. 7.92. The Lycians furnished fifty ships; they wore cuirasses and greaves, and carried cornel-wood bows and unfeathered arrows and javelins; goat-skins hung from their shoulders, and they wore on their heads caps crowned with feathers; they also had daggers and scimitars. The Lycians are from Crete and were once called Termilae; they took their name from Lycus son of Pandion, an Athenian. 7.93. The Dorians of Asia furnished thirty ships; their armor was Greek; they are of Peloponnesian descent. The Carians furnished seventy ships; they had scimitars and daggers, but the rest of their equipment was Greek. I have said in the beginning of my history what they were formerly called. 7.94. The Ionians furnished a hundred ships; their equipment was like the Greek. These Ionians, as long as they were in the Peloponnese, dwelt in what is now called Achaia, and before Danaus and Xuthus came to the Peloponnese, as the Greeks say, they were called Aegialian Pelasgians. They were named Ionians after Ion the son of Xuthus. 7.95. The islanders provided seventeen ships and were armed like Greeks; they were also of Pelasgian stock, which was later called Ionian for the same reason as were the Ionians of the twelve cities, who came from Athens. The Aeolians furnished sixty ships and were equipped like Greeks; formerly they were called Pelasgian, as the Greek story goes. ,of the people of the Hellespont, the people of Abydos had been charged by the king to remain at home and guard the bridges; the rest of the people from Pontus who came with the army furnished a hundred ships and were equipped like Greeks. They were settlers from the Ionians and Dorians. 7.96. Persians and Medes and Sacae served as soldiers on all the ships. The most seaworthy ships were furnished by the Phoenicians, and among them by the Sidonians. All of these, as with those who were marshalled in the infantry, each had their native leaders, whose names I do not record, since it is not necessary for the purpose of my history. ,The leaders of each nation are not worthy of mention, and every city of each nation had a leader of its own. These came not as generals but as slaves, like the rest of the expedition; I have already said who were the generals of supreme authority and the Persian commanders of each nation. 7.97. The admirals of the navy were Ariabignes son of Darius, Prexaspes son of Aspathines, Megabazus son of Megabates, and Achaemenes son of Darius. Ariabignes, son of Darius and Gobryas' daughter, was admiral of the Ionian and Carian fleet; the admiral of the Egyptians was Achaemenes, full brother of Xerxes; and the two others were admirals of the rest. The ships of thirty and of fifty oars, the light galleys, and the great transports for horses came to a total of three thousand all together. 7.98. After the admirals, the most famous of those on board were these: from Sidon, Tetramnestus son of Anysus; from Tyre, Matten son of Siromus; from Aradus, Merbalus son of Agbalus; from Cilicia, Syennesis son of Oromedon; from Lycia, Cyberniscus son of Sicas; from Cyprus, Gorgus son of Chersis and Timonax son of Timagoras; and from Caria, Histiaeus son of Tymnes, Pigres son of Hysseldomus, and Damasithymus son of Candaules. 7.99. I see no need to mention any of the other captains except Artemisia. I find it a great marvel that a woman went on the expedition against Hellas: after her husband died, she took over his tyranny, though she had a young son, and followed the army from youthful spirits and manliness, under no compulsion. ,Artemisia was her name, and she was the daughter of Lygdamis; on her fathers' side she was of Halicarnassian lineage, and on her mothers' Cretan. She was the leader of the men of Halicarnassus and Cos and Nisyrus and Calydnos, and provided five ships. ,Her ships were reputed to be the best in the whole fleet after the ships of Sidon, and she gave the king the best advice of all his allies. The cities that I said she was the leader of are all of Dorian stock, as I can show, since the Halicarnassians are from Troezen, and the rest are from Epidaurus. 7.101. After he passed by all his fleet and disembarked from the ship, he sent for Demaratus son of Ariston, who was on the expedition with him against Hellas. He summoned him and said, “Demaratus, it is now my pleasure to ask you what I wish to know. You are a Greek, and, as I am told both by you and by the other Greeks whom I have talked to, a man from neither the least nor the weakest of Greek cities. ,So tell me: will the Greeks offer battle and oppose me? I think that even if all the Greeks and all the men of the western lands were assembled together, they are not powerful enough to withstand my attack, unless they are united. ,Still I want to hear from you what you say of them.” To this question Demaratus answered, “O king, should I speak the truth or try to please you?” Xerxes bade him speak the truth and said that it would be no more unpleasant for him than before. 7.102. Demaratus heard this and said, “O King, since you bid me by all means to speak the whole truth, and to say what you will not later prove to be false, in Hellas poverty is always endemic, but courage is acquired as the fruit of wisdom and strong law; by use of this courage Hellas defends herself from poverty and tyranny. ,Now I praise all the Greeks who dwell in those Dorian lands, yet I am not going to speak these words about all of them, but only about the Lacedaemonians. First, they will never accept conditions from you that bring slavery upon Hellas; and second, they will meet you in battle even if all the other Greeks are on your side. ,Do not ask me how many these men are who can do this; they will fight with you whether they have an army of a thousand men, or more than that, or less.” 7.103. When he heard this, Xerxes smiled and said, “What a strange thing to say, Demaratus, that a thousand men would fight with so great an army! Come now, tell me this: you say that you were king of these men. Are you willing right now to fight with ten men? Yet if your state is entirely as you define it, you as their king should by right encounter twice as many according to your laws. ,If each of them is a match for ten men of my army, then it is plain to me that you must be a match for twenty; in this way you would prove that what you say is true. But if you Greeks who so exalt yourselves are just like you and the others who come to speak with me, and are also the same size, then beware lest the words you have spoken be only idle boasting. ,Let us look at it with all reasonableness: how could a thousand, or ten thousand, or even fifty thousand men, if they are all equally free and not under the rule of one man, withstand so great an army as mine? If you Greeks are five thousand, we still would be more than a thousand to one. ,If they were under the rule of one man according to our custom, they might out of fear of him become better than they naturally are, and under compulsion of the lash they might go against greater numbers of inferior men; but if they are allowed to go free they would do neither. I myself think that even if they were equal in numbers it would be hard for the Greeks to fight just against the Persians. ,What you are talking about is found among us alone, and even then it is not common but rare; there are some among my Persian spearmen who will gladly fight with three Greeks at once. You have no knowledge of this and are spouting a lot of nonsense.” 7.104. To this Demaratus answered, “O king I knew from the first that the truth would be unwelcome to you. But since you compelled me to speak as truly as I could, I have told you how it stands with the Spartans. ,You yourself best know what love I bear them: they have robbed me of my office and the privileges of my house, and made me a cityless exile; your father received me and gave me a house and the means to live on. It is not reasonable for a sensible man to reject goodwill when it appears; rather he will hold it in great affection. ,I myself do not promise that I can fight with ten men or with two, and I would not even willingly fight with one; yet if it were necessary, or if some great contest spurred me, I would most gladly fight with one of those men who claim to be each a match for three Greeks. ,So is it with the Lacedaemonians; fighting singly they are as brave as any man living, and together they are the best warriors on earth. They are free, yet not wholly free: law is their master, whom they fear much more than your men fear you. ,They do whatever it bids; and its bidding is always the same, that they must never flee from the battle before any multitude of men, but must abide at their post and there conquer or die. If I seem to you to speak foolishness when I say this, then let me hereafter hold my peace; it is under constraint that I have now spoken. But may your wish be fulfilled, King.” 7.105. Thus Demaratus answered. Xerxes made a joke of the matter and showed no anger, but sent him away kindly. After he had conversed with Demaratus, and appointed Mascames son of Megadostes governor of this Doriscus, deposing the governor Darius had appointed, Xerxes marched his army through Thrace towards Hellas. 7.204. Each city had its own general, but the one most admired and the leader of the whole army was a Lacedaemonian, Leonidas, son of Anaxandrides, son of Leon, son of Eurycratides, son of Anaxandrus, son of Eurycrates, son of Polydorus, son of Alcamenes, son of Teleclus, son of Archelaus, son of Hegesilaus, son of Doryssus, son of Leobotes, son of Echestratus, son of Agis, son of Eurysthenes, son of Aristodemus, son of Aristomachus, son of Cleodaeus, son of Hyllus, son of Heracles. Leonidas had gained the kingship at Sparta unexpectedly. |
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